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BlacKSacrificE (1089327) writes "Australian carriers are bracing for a mass recall after it was revealed that a Dutch SIM card manufacturer Gemalto was penetrated by the GCHQ and the NSA in an alleged theft of encryption keys, allowing unfetted access to voice and text communications. The incident is suspected to have happened in 2010 and 2011 and seems to be a result of social engineering against employees, and was revealed by yet another Snowden document. Telstra, Vodafone and Optus have all stated they are waiting for further information from Gemalto before deciding a course of action. Gemalto said in a press release that they "cannot at this early stage verify the findings of the publication" and are continuing internal investigations, but considering Gemalto provides around 2 billion SIM cards to some 450 carriers across the globe (all of which use the same GSM encryption standard) the impact and fallout for Gemalto, and the affected carriers, could be huge."

Average temperature seems to sit between about 32 and 37 degrees Celsius for Perth. I'm certain if the average were a full 10+ degrees over this, the DC would have been built to accommodate this significantly higher temperature. Not really a useful comparison.

Yes it has. But there has been a fundamental shift in the accessability of the technology. A majority of this technology has historically been radio transmitters that cost hundreds (sometimes thousands) of dollars, recievers that cost similar, and models that actually require a solid understanding of aerodynamics to build, trim and fly. Dozens if not hundreds of hours of work to build it. An big investment of time, money, and a dash of pride meant that flyers protected their craft like a their first born. Flying near an airfield would be unspeakable; No way in hell do I want my toy wrecked by errant prop or jet wash! (..I guess it would suck if I brought an actual plane down as well.. I guess).

The only thing different about drones is that they are slow and hence easier seen.

I disagree. Any spanner with a credit card and a desire to see their neighbours tits can go buy a ready to fly FPV drone cheap on eBay, hook it up to their smartphone, and get in the air in a second. No expensive equipment investment, no time invested in the build, no incentive to protect their flyer. THIS is the difference, and it has seen people who would never consider an RC aircraft suddenly snapping them up like the "toys" they are often marketed to be. So now you have a bunch of people who have no knowledge about aerodynamics or aviation generally who suddenly think "wouldn't it be sick to go fly this around an airport for lulz and photos", and suddenly we have the problems we are now seeing. Most fixed and rotary wing hobbyists I know have an inherent respect for their fellow flyers, be they scale or full size pilots. We all share the sky, and we'd rather not kill each other.

HISTORICALLY there has been close to zero risk (no such thing as zero risk, where there are humans involved, there is always room for something to fuck up) but now the technology is more accessable to the "pleb public", the risks of serious incident is and will continue to increase. As you have said, there have been next to no incidents historically, but as many have pointed out to you, the fact this story even exists to publish is a demonstration that the danger is indeed increasing. To ignore these factors is about as ignorant as using an absolute term like "zero actual risk" when there is no way for you to know what is and has happened globally in the past.. however many years of RC flying as a hobby.

All of which require refilling, replacement of scraper edges, and replenishment at x interval. They work, but they are not the best solution.
A laser has no moving parts, and runs on the power that the train already provides, and if built reliably enough, will last the life of the engine with nothing more than the odd clean of its lens. This is evolution of technology, you should try to be less resistant less you get left behind.

No a quadrocopter and a bird will likely get downed by the propwash before it gets anywhere near a helicopter.

Why reply when you have clearly not comprehended the dudes post?
If a drone gets UNDER the rotor disk, sweet, it gets blown into oblivion. But thats only one of three possible scenarios.
If it gets ABOVE or LATERALLY CLOSE to the disk, it could either be sucked downwards into the rotor disk, or, as Splab correctly said, be pulled into the tip vortex ring, which would see the drone be lifted over and into the disk. See this diagram for a quick look at the aerodynamics at play.

I'd guess a decent chunk of (actual) drone sightings around airports may be plane spotters looking for that killer take off/landing shot of their favourite bird. You would hope they know enough about aviation to know how stupid it is to do, but like there have been trainspotters killed for being to close to the tracks, I'm sure there are plane spotters out there who are too retarded to realise hovering a camera 200 feet above the threshold for that "perfect" landing shot is a really, REALLY bad idea.
This is literally the only scenario I have seen where the idea of signal jamming does not seem like a completely stupid and over reactionary move. Considering a lot of these drones either waypoint home or just maintain position (as opposed to dropping from the sky like you'd want), this may not be a solution though.

We had a laptop come across the bench once that had been "raped by malware" according to the booking agent. Programs opening themselves, unpredictable behaviour everywhere. Before I had even powered the thing I noticed the enter key was sitting a poofteenth lower than the rest of the keys. Pulled the keyboard and found a fingernail clipping wedged under the lifter. Needless to say none of the reported problems were evident when I loaded it to OS. Why the BIOS did not pick up a stuck key I will never know, but hey, it was an easy $70.

Hell, if I could headbutt another human into oblivion for a mate, I would too.
Here's the funny thing folks, humans are animals too! We have all the same urges and evolutionary pressures, we just lucked out enough to have a brain big enough to develop domestic violence, child abuse and random acts of aggression against strangers/the weak (a lot of which can be trace to evolutionary behaviours anyway) to fill the hole that our self abstinence from murder has left.
I will be very interested to see how this data fees into human behavioural study.

MikeChino (1640221) writes "A new paper by a group of researchers from Montana State University confirms that life can survive under antarctic ice. Researchers led by John Priscu drilled down into the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and pulled up organisms called Archaea. These organisms survive by converting methane into energy, enabling them to survive where there is no wind or sunlight, buried deep under the ice."Link to Original Source

angry tapir (1463043) writes "The Australian Electoral Commission has been fighting a freedom of information request to reveal the source code of the software it uses to calculate votes in elections for Australia's upper house of parliament. Not only has the AEC refused an FOI request for the source code, but it has also refused an order from the Senate directing that the source code be produced. Apparently releasing the code could "leave the voting system open to hacking or manipulation"."Link to Original Source

Why is it that every couple of years something catastrophic happens to the group that severely impacts their progress, and trivializes the hard work of many contributors? And, why does it *have* to be something that’s amplified by the group’s “quirky” management who are clearly out of their league?..

Why didn't you put your name to your comment here like you did on HaD?